Manchester City hit seven goals as they thrashed Stoke City 7-2 on Saturday.

City were 3-0 up in 27 minutes through goals from Gabriel Jesus, Raheem Sterling and David Silva.

Stoke gave themselves hope when Mame Biram Diouf netted in the 44th minute and the Etihad suddenly grew anxious when a Kyle Walker own goal closed the gap further two minutes after half-time.

But any worries were swiftly banished by three more City goals in seven minutes, with Jesus' second followed by strikes from Fernandinho and Leroy Sane. Bernardo Silva finished off the scoring 11 minutes from time.

Guardiola said of the quality of his side's football: "I cannot deny, today maybe was the best performance since I arrived here, for a long time.

"Except two actions (when Stoke scored just before and just after halftime to make it 3-2) - and we have to learn from that - in general we made a really good performance.

"After the international break, it is always a little bit complicated, but we did it very well. We played quick because we played simple.

"I'm very pleased because again we won, and especially with the way we won.

"These kind of games after international breaks, sometimes you take your time, and yesterday in the training session and today we spoke about that, that we had to start good and be aggressive.

"We cannot wait. We have to do our game, and we did it. We saw since the beginning the team was there.

"Everybody had a good performance. You cannot score seven goals if all the team are not good."